The Best Friends
by ElleM1230
Summary: Katniss wants to move on after a horrible set of events. But it took a toll on her, and her self esteem was so low she thought she would be forever alone. Could an old friend help her get her life back?


**Chapter One - Reacquaintance**

Katniss looked at her reflection in the mirror.

She looked awful. She was too short, only 5'2", her tits were too small, her curves were almost nonexistent and she had definitely lost weight, the scales barely reached 115 pounds. No wonder she was still single at the age of 26. She brushed her long black hair and applied some makeup to try to bring out what she considered her only attribute, her smoky gray eyes. But—"Oh no!" — Were those wrinkles that she was starting to get? She was doomed to be alone for the rest of her life.

For the past six months since she left her two year fiancée, Cato —a complete asshole whom abused her— it felt as though the whole world looked at her as if she were some kind of a freak. What was wrong with her?

A knock on the door woke Katniss from her daydreams.

"Are you ready, Catnip?" —her cousin called— "People will start arriving any minute now."

At the age of 28, Katniss' stunningly handsome cousin Gale was a playboy. He owned a fantastic apartment, he'd made a very good living being in the military, and he had a different girl every week. Nobody ever questioned why he was still single. It was different for guys. They weren't seen as failures or over-the-hill if they hadn't nailed themselves a wife by the time they were 25. Almost every weekend he threw lavish parties and this was the first time he'd managed to persuade Katniss to come since she returned home after ending things with Cato. She slipped into a pretty little black dress that was borrowed from her friend Madge —Gale's high school ex-girlfriend, since she got tired of being cheated on by him. With a final look at the mirror, she silently prayed that the little dress miraculously did something for her figure, so that nobody could see how thin she was getting. She was dreading this. Why had she agreed to come tonight? It was going to be Gale's single friends, who all knew that she was no longer engaged, and a lot of women who were probably both younger and prettier than she was.

The party started as badly as she'd expected. People came up to her and commiserated with her on her broken engagement. They all assumed that she'd been the one who was dumped. After all, why would she –a mere teacher– dump a successful corporate lawyer? A lawyer who'd been seen with several new girls since their break-up six months earlier. Only a few people, Gale and her best friends Jo and Madge knew the full story. Only they knew how Cato had drugged her and let four guys rape her for an entire weekend. How he threatened her to send her family and friends the video of her "_willingly_" having sex with 4 men at the same time if she tried to leave —conveniently for him, the video didn't show the part when she had been drugged by him, since he slipped the drug in her drink at the bar where they were before. How, after that, he repeatedly, over the course of a year, frequently brought friends over to have sex with her against her will. Only they knew that the baby she'd lost, after Cato had brutally beaten her, had not been Cato's, but the product of her being repeatedly raped, since Cato let those men fuck her without a condom.

That was the final straw. She told her friends, and immediately, Madge and Jo move all her stuff out of Cato's house the day after, when she was still in the hospital. Gale almost lost it when he knew. They took the case to the courts, but with Cato's embarrassing video as "_evidence_" and his powerful contacts with the judges and prosecutors of District Two, the case was dismissed.

Gale and her friends tried to convince her of taking the case to the Capitol Supreme Court, but she didn't want to keep reliving the nightmare and making the case or the video public. That had been the only victory they had, since the court ordered Cato to destroy every copy of it, under threat of contempt of court. No more, it was time to try to move on. So she decided to close that horrendous chapter of her life and returned with her friends to her small hometown in District Twelve, taking a job as a third grade teacher in the District Elementary School, retreated into her own shell and bought herself a rundown property to renovate.

But Cato didn't accept her departure and followed her, trying to get her back. Too bad for him, in District Twelve, justice was very different. They looked after their own, and he learned it the hard way when Gale beat him to a pulp the night he came to her house, and old Sherriff Cray threw him out of town without even filing a complaint.

This thought made Katniss smile, and when she looked up, her eyes met the blue gaze of Peeta Mellark.

"It's good to see you smile, Katniss, I missed it." —said Peeta kissing her cheek before he sat down next to her.

"Hi Peeta! I didn't know you were coming tonight!" —Katniss's face lit up as she started talking with her cousin's best friend.

Gale and Peeta had been best friends as long as Katniss could remember, and when she was a teenager she'd had a massive crush on him. Unfortunately they'd never been single at the same time —not that Peeta had ever shown any interest in her. But now he was living with his girlfriend. A curvaceous blonde, tall, green eyed stunning beauty. It would be stupid for anyone —especially someone as insignificant as her— to even try to compete with that.

"Is Glimmer here tonight?"

"Nope." —was Peeta's short answer.

"Is something the matter?" —she asked, feeling the tension in the body next to hers on the couch.

Peeta sighed. "I guess you'll find out sooner or later. Glimmer dumped me."

"_The stupid bitch! She didn't know what a good thing she had in Peeta." _—she thought outraged.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. When did that happen?"

"Last weekend. It was the second anniversary of our first date, and the first anniversary of her moving in with me. I thought it would be romantic as hell to propose to her. She took one look at the engagement ring, laughed in my face and took off. Monday night when I came home from work, she'd cleared out all her stuff. I guess I wasn't good enough for her."

"Not good enough for her?" —Katniss couldn't believe her ears. —"You're nice, fit and good-looking. You run your own business —which is really successful. How can you not be good enough for her?"

Peeta smiled and his blue eyes beamed into Katniss' gray ones. — "I need to hire you as my personal PR assistant."

"I'm only telling the truth."

"Oh, sweet innocent Katniss! Love, devotion and a promise to provide for her to the best of my abilities isn't enough for every woman. Glimmer is a Capitol gal, and her sister is married to an English Lord Something-or-whatever. Glimmer herself used to date the heir of some billionaire European businessman before she met me. She was just slumming it with me and I was foolish enough to think that she would actually consider spending the rest of her life living in a small town with a simple humble baker."

"Well, if it's any consolation, I always thought that the woman was a bitch. You were far too good for her, and if she did not appreciate the wonderful man she had by her side, it's her loss, not yours. You'll see that soon you'll get someone better than her. You deserve someone better."

He smiled at her and kissed her hand.

"Thank you beautiful. You didn't deserve what that miserable of Cato did to you either. He may be the most successful lawyer in the big city, but he's a douchebag, and a criminal. He should be in jail." —At Katniss's astonished and embarrassed look, he quickly clarified— "Please don't get mad at Gale. He was so furious the day he beat up the bastard that he needed to steam off. Who better than me? I've been his best friend since we were in diapers, I've known you forever and I'd never tell anyone. The only thing I regret is that he didn't tell me earlier that day, so I would accompany him and break the bones that Gale didn't manage to get. He didn't deserve any mercy after what he did."

This time it was her who smiled through slightly wet eyes, and she kissed his cheek.

"Thank you Peeta." Their eyes met, and they stood there momentarily, lost in each other's gaze. It was the violent shake on Peeta's shoulders, as a greeting from his other friend Thom —who had just arrived with his girlfriend Delly— that broke the trance between them.

Katniss and Peeta spent the next few hours on the couch, talking about everything under the sun. The topics of Cato and Glimmer were long forgotten, and they shared everything. Despite having known each other for over 20 years they realized that they hadn't known each other all that well, but now they discovered how much they had in common. They loved the same movies, they read the same books, they even listened to the same music —apart from Peeta's fascination with 70's pop music, which was a bit embarrassing, but he didn't hold the fact that Katniss was quite happy to relax with a bowl of popcorn in front of a mushy romantic movie against her. He made her laugh like she hadn't laughed for a long time and he was genuinely interested when she told him little anecdotes from her life as a third grade teacher.

Before she knew what had happened, the apartment seemed empty and she was feeling rather tipsy. She looked around and all the guests seemed gone, apart from the fiery redhead Gale was making out with in the corner.

"Do you want another drink?" —Peeta asked and Katniss realized that she'd had far too much already. Peeta had kept topping up her glass and she'd lost count of how much she'd had.

"No, thanks," —she replied— "I think I've had enough. What time is it?"

"It's just after 2 a.m." —Peeta replied— "I guess that's why the place is so empty. I totally lost track of time."

"Me too," —Katniss smiled at him— "I've really enjoyed myself tonight. I'm glad I came."

"So am I," —Peeta said— "I wasn't going to, but Gale talked me into it."

"Same here."

"Did anyone say my name?" —Gale walked up to Peeta and Katniss with the redhead in tow— "You kids have fun and don't forget to turn off the lights. You can sleep on the couch if you don't want to get an Uber, Peeta. Laura and I are off to bed."

"My name is Lavinia!" —the redhead corrected him.

"Of course it is!" —Gale kissed her and groped her ass, making her giggle as she headed towards his bedroom. Gale turned around to the pair on the couch and mouthed '_whatever_'.

As the door closed behind Gale and they heard the thud of two bodies landing on the bed, Katniss and Peeta looked at each other and laughed embarrassedly.

"I can't believe he did that in front of you, after all, you're Madge's best friend." —said Peeta and shook his head.

"He knows that I know what he's like, he didn't deserve her anyway. It was her who thought that he would ever settledown after so many years on and off. Guess she got tired of it. I heard she's dating you brother Rye." —she replied and he nod in agreement.

"Three months now. He's crazy about her. He's a lucky guy."

"She's the lucky one. He's a good guy, just like you. All you Mellark boys are amazing." — she smiled shyly, biting her lower lip and blushing— "I'm a little tipsy, I guess I should be heading to bed too. I'm in the guest bedroom. Will you be sleeping on the couch? Don't you have to go to open the bakery in the morning?"

"Nah, I took the weekend off, Thresh and Rue can manage without me. I've drank too much to drive home and I don't fancy having to come back tomorrow to get my car."

"Okay…goodnight then." She said with a chuckle.

Katniss went to the bathroom and cleaned off her makeup and brushed her teeth. She then changed into one of Gale's old t-shirts that she was using as a nightgown and was about to get into bed when there was a knock on the door.

It was Peeta.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but I could do with some sheets and a pillow for the couch. They're in here."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I should've thought of that before I closed the door." —Katniss stood back and watched Peeta get what he needed from the closets.

"I really enjoyed our chat tonight," —he said and looked at her, making her feel self-conscious since she wasn't wearing a bra — "Well, goodnight then."

"Goodnight," —she replied and angled her face for Peeta's kiss on her cheek.

**Hi! I'm Elle, and this is my first fan fiction ever. Please let me know your thoughts.**


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